Following from the recent post on this site about Dublin’s urban heritage, a number of recent news stories may be of interest to some readers. The first of these is the announcement, as reported by the Irish Times, that the government may seek to repossess the Bank of Ireland building on College Green. From a broader perspective, the reclamation of the bank building would be a hugely significant and symbolic statement by the current government about its new-found role in the banking sector. More particularly, it would present the opportunity to create a new public use for a historically and architecturally significant building.

The proposed repossession of the bank would provide the potential to create a public building facing onto what has been seen by many, going back at least to the Metropolitan Streets Commission in the late 1980s, as a central public space for Dublin (something which perhaps has increased currency with the recent visit of the U.S. President, Barack Obama). While the full pedestrianisation of College Green may prove somewhat difficult to implement, new uses for the former parliament building would certainly help to promote its position as a central public space within the city. As mooted within the Temple Bar Framework Plan of 2004 (available here), it also presents the opportunity to promote pedestrian connections between Temple Bar and the Trinity/Grafton Street area. The question remains, however, as to what use the building should be put to?

Following from Eamon Ryan’s call for the bank to be transformed to an elibrary a number of years ago, Labour TD for Dublin North Central, Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, has recently opened an online survey seeking public views on its transformation into the Dublin City Library. Meanwhile, in its own poll, the Archiseek website is broadening the question somewhat, with the library option included with a number of others, such as a Dublin City Museum, or the location of the Irish Senate. If the repossession goes ahead, such discussions could perhaps be broadened to provide the opportunity for the public to present their ideas on what its use might be through an ideas competition or similar.

I would argue, as I have before with regards to Smithfield, that if College Green is to become a central public space, which is at least given pedestrian priority, then the location of a public building with full public accessibility is of significant importance. I would also argue that while the transformation of the bank may certainly boost Dublin’s tourist industry, we should not solely seek what is primarily a tourist function as its use. Thus, in as much as it fits within Dublin’s designation as a UNESCO city of literature, the movement of Dublin City Library to this location might tick a number of boxes, so to speak. Particularly given that the proposed move to the Ambassador cinema seems to have fallen through (as mentioned on the poll being run by Aodhán Ó Ríordáin).

Meanwhile, and in a similar vein, as also highlighted by the Irish Times in recent days, the announcement by Dublin City Council that it is to carry out the rejuvenation of numbers 15 and 16 Henrietta Street may come as good news for those interested in the preservation of Dublin’s Georgian heritage. Pointedly, the redevelopment of the site, which is the outcome of a design competition from 2008, will include the development of a theatre and, according to the original design proposals, a craft training centre focused on stone and brick masonry trades. That this project is currently going ahead highlights the potential for the future use of interventions, such as the Derelict Sites Act, or, indeed ownership of land within NAMA, for the delivery of positive publicly orientated outcomes.

When taken together, both interventions indicate the potential that the public ownership of land, when orientated for the public good, presents in terms of the protection and use-value of the heritage of our towns and cities.

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A lone sheep on a mountain track beneath a dilapidated Las Vegas style sign advertising Hibernia; a mother and daughter face a city in flames, as the giant figure of Justice looms out of the darkness; a group of conspirators dance beneath a giant flag by a quayside, as the lights from office windows of banks twinkle ominously late into the night. These are images from Brian McCarthy’s compelling collection ‘Boomtown’, which should appeal to the readers of Ireland After NAMA, for their observations on issues of economy, society and nationhood, in this unprecedented period of crisis and turbulence.

Boomtown

As the behemoth NAMA lurches on, cloaked in secrecy, McCarthy’s vision captures the mood of a society stretched between rage and bewilderment, whose memories of betrayal burn and who in spite of the mantra of corporate Ireland, cannot and will not ‘move on’.

In his signature image ‘Boomtown’, McCarthy presents a crowded landscape of slum-like dwellings, cramped together on the hillsides, overlooked by an unfinished Tower of Babel. The allusion is towards the Favelas of Latin America, but this landscape seems also to be a striking observation on the ruinous capacity of over-development. This dense landscape seems moored in despair. The Tricolor hangs from the balconies of houses. The flag is a constant motif running though his collection – you see it on emigrant’s boats, or rising up from the street in preparation for revolution.

In ‘Delirium’ – another telling image – a prosaic Dublin shop-front is transformed into a Head Shop. Remember them? This shop sells Celtic Tiger Craic Pills. As a comment on the character of the Irish Banking Sector and the practice of excess, it sums things up more clearly than the Nyberg Report on Banking Sector. He pictures money blowing up the street – like the credit that littered the Irish landscape with empty and unbuilt houses.

Delirium

McCarthy’s use of magical realism constructs a counterfactual landscape that is deliberately antagonistic to the spectacle and narratives of the boom-time. The technique provides a sophisticated mode of social inquiry, observation and analysis. This kind of art sets out to disrupt what Guy Debord once called ‘…the existing order’s uninterrupted discourse about itself, its laudatory monologue.’ Those carefully crafted images of Ireland –monetized by Culture Ireland, Bord Failte and the IDA – are dealt a sharp blow by his critique.

In this way, these images act like a codicil to the drama of space that has characterized the rise of and fall of the Irish economy. Paradoxically, whilst occasionally framing Ireland as South America or Asia, he provides the location of the ‘where’ in that deadening phrase of We Are Where We Are: a county called WAWWA. If you are still looking for it, here is…

Willie Penrose TD, Minister for Housing and Planning, was in action in the Dail last week fielding questions – see Dail Debates (17th May) and Dail Eireann Written Answers (18th May) (pages 101-121). He answered questions on a range of issues, but one area that caught my attention was in relation to social housing vacancy, turnaround time until reoccupied and re-fitting costs because the answers came with some data I’ve not seen before.

With respect to data on turnaround times the Minister drew attention to “The sixth annual report of the Local Government Management Services Board [LGMSG], published in February 2011, which details service indicators in local authorities in 2009, shows the average time taken, from the date of vacating of a unit to the date when all necessary repairs are carried out, to re-let a unit in each authority. The figures show that some 4,286 dwellings were vacant, accounting for 3.4% of the total national social housing stock of around 126,000 units. The length of time taken to re-let units varies considerably between authorities and ranges from as little as one week in Limerick City Council to as high as 45 weeks in South Tipperary County Council.”

He supplied the following table taken from the report of the LGMSB.

Average time taken (in weeks) from the date of vacationof dwelling to the date whenall necessary repairs are carried out and which are deemed necessary to re-let the dwelling

Carlow County Council

17.7

Cavan County Council

13.0

Clare County Council

18.2

Cork City Council

17.9

Cork County Council

11.1

Donegal County Council

24

Dublin City Council

19.5

Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council

15.9

Fingal! County Council

18

Galway City Council

7

Galway County Council

30.1

Kerry County Council

24.1

Kildare County Council

6.9

Kilkenny County Council

19.7

Laois County Council

18

Leitrim County Council

15.1

Limerick City Council

1

Limerick County Council

40.2

Longford County Council

7

Louth County Council

8

Mayo County Council

18.5

Meath County Council

11

Monaghan County Council

14.8

North Tipperary County Council

12.5

Offaly County Council

8.8

Roscommon County Council

21.3

Sligo County Council

18.6

South Dublin County Council

18.7

South Tipperary County Council

45.8

Waterford City Council

9

Waterford County Council

19.5

Westmeath County Council

5.2

Wexford County Council

9.2

Wicklow County Council

25.6

Given the numbers of people on the social housing waiting list and the pressure to obtain social housing it would be very interesting to find out why there is such a wide variation in the length of time it takes local authorities to repair and refit housing and get new tenants into their new homes. These figures are an average, so one presumes in some cases houses are unoccupied for more than a year. The figure of a one week average for Limerick City seems barely credible, especially given the length of the other counties, but maybe they have a special refit and relocate team?

The DECLG programme to aid financially local authorities in refitting and refurbing local authority housing is the Social Housing Investment Programme. Here’s what he had to say about it in the written answer: “Under my Department’s Social Housing Investment Programme, local authorities are allocated capital funding each year in respect of a range of measures to improve the standard and overall quality of their social housing stock. The programme includes a retrofitting measure aimed at improving the energy efficiency of older apartments and houses.

My Department requested local authorities specifically to target vacant dwellings in 2011 with the objective of returning the maximum number of vacant units to productive use at reasonable cost. However, necessary improvement works to occupied houses will continue to be eligible for funding from within the allocations notified to individual authorities.

Some €31million is being provided to local authorities in 2011 in respect of their social housing improvement works programmes.”

And in the Dail Debate: “This [€31m] does not include funding for large-scale regeneration projects and estate-wide remedial works projects which also include retrofitting and refurbishment works on vacant dwellings, for which a further provision of €172 million is being made this year. My Department’s improvement works programme is specifically targeting vacant dwellings in 2011 with the objective of returning the maximum number of vacant units to productive use at reasonable cost. In the case of casual or short-term vacancies, a grant of up to €18,000 or 90% of cost, whichever is the lesser, is recouped to the local authority in respect of works to improve the standard and the energy efficiency of a dwelling.

In the case of properties which have remained vacant for a protracted period or properties which have fallen into a state of serious disrepair, a special measure is being introduced this year which will allow local authorities to claim up to €35,000 for each unit returned to productive use. Authorities are required to prepare an Improvement plan for vacant properties for 2011, outlining the number of vacant properties on hands and setting out the proposed measures to improve these properties.

My Department’s records show that over the period 2004 to 2010 some €52 million was recouped to local authorities in respect of improvements works on vacant properties. I will also circulate with the Official Report a tabular statement setting out details in this regard.”

Here is that improvement works data.

RECOUPMENT IN RESPECT OF IMPROVEMENT WORKS TO VOID PROPERTIES 2004 – 2010

€

Cavan County Council

451,395.00

Clare County Council

793,307.00

Cork City Council

2,853,410.00

Cork County Council

2,108,482.00

Donegal County Council

377,536.00

Dublin City Council

31,021,448.63

Fingal County Council

430,965.00

Galway City Council

209,752.00

Galway County Council

356,277.00

Kerry County Council

2,645,289.00

Kildare County Council

134,194.00

Leitrim County Council

223,454.00

Limerick City Council

1,181,503.00

Limerick County Council

547,564.00

Longford County Council

762,839.00

Louth County Council

702,664.00

Mayo County Council

1,371,463.00

Meath County Council

1,514,163.00

Monaghan County Council

211,002.00

Offaly County Council

272,705.00

Roscommon County Council

379,677.00

Sligo Borough Council

357,555.00

Sligo County Council

165,181.00

North Tipperary County Council

664,857.00

South Tipperary County Council

27,611.00

Waterford City Council

1,588,878.00

Wexford County Council

712,730.00

Wicklow County Council

821,583.00

Total

52,887,484.63

€203m then is being made available in 2011 to help repair and refit local authority housing this year, including large scale regeneration projects such as Ballymun and Limerick. If this is the full allocation, then the €172m directed at large scale regeneration projects is almost certainly a fairly large rollback on what was originally allocated and required, albeit it’ll go some way towards addressing some pressing issues. It’ll be interesting to see how much of the funding available is drawn down and its effects on void social housing turnaround times.

Minister Penrose also acknowledged that the Advisory Group on Unfinished Housing Developments had submitted its final report to him on May 6th. He presently “considering its findings and recommendations and will bring proposed actions and recommendations to Government for approval shortly, with a view to publishing the Report thereafter“.

At a time when the financial crisis in the Eurozone is seen to cast doubts on the extent to which European institutions act in the collective interests of Europe, it is perhaps instructive to consider the question of the territorial agenda of the European Union. To what extent does the EU have a coherent spatial policy or agenda or do individual sectoral policies have uncoordinated and even contradictory effects?

Yesterday (19th May) at a meeting of the Ministers of EU member states responsible for spatial planning and territorial development in the town of Gödöllő, Hungary a new Territorial Agenda for the European Union was agreed upon. With the title ‘Territorial Agenda of the European Union 2020: Towards an Inclusive, Smart and Sustainable Europe of Diverse Regions’ the document follows on from a previous Territorial Agenda published in 2007. In light of the lead role of the Hungarian Presidency, the new Territorial Agenda has been expected to place a renewed emphasis on reducing disparities between Western and Eastern Europe and the particular development challenges faced by Eastern member states. The document supports the principle of ‘territorial cohesion’ which may be interpreted as balanced regional development at the European level:

We believe that territorial cohesion is a set of principles for harmonious, balanced, efficient, sustainable territorial development. It enables equal opportunities for citizens and enterprises, wherever they are located, to make the most of their territorial potentials. Territorial cohesion reinforces the principle of solidarity to promote convergence between the economies of better-off territories and those whose development is lagging behind.

It is further stated that ‘development opportunities are best tailored to the specificities of an area’ indicating that territory matters and regional development policies need to take account of the specific characteristics and diversity of individual regions. This echoes recent arguments for a ‘place-based’ approach to regional development policy rather than a reliance on ‘spatially-blind’ sectoral approaches (such as the Common Agricultural Policy). Suggesting continued support for an interventionist approach it is noted that ‘Regions might need external support to find their own paths to sustainable development, with particular attention to those lagging behind’.

Drawing on an evidenced-based ‘Territorial State and Perspectives’ background document (as yet not in the public domain) the Territorial Agenda identifies 6 main territorial challenges facing the European Union:

Informal meeting of Ministers responsible for territorial development and spatial planning, Gödöllő, 19th May

The challenges outlined serve to highlight that regions in Europe face distinct sets of challenges but that there also significant commonalities. In particular the impacts of demographic and climate change are recognised to vary significantly across the European territory. It may be noted that development disparities between East and West (or urban and rural regions) are not specifically mentioned.

The document subsequently identifies six ‘Territorial Priorities’ for the EU, for the purpose of responding the challenges outlined above:

1. Promote polycentric and balanced territorial development

2. Encouraging integrated development in cities, rural and specific regions

The concepts of polycentric development and integrated development of urban and rural regions are themes which have featured centrally in European spatial policy since the 1990s; although it may be argued that they still require clarification in terms of their intended operationalisation. The identification of territorial integration in cross-border and transnational functional regions reflects a particular commitment in EU regional development policy to reduce border effects and improve cooperation, particularly through the INTERREG programme from which Ireland has benefited significantly. In total, approximately 40% of the territory of the EU is located within border regions.

Implementation of the Territorial Agenda of the European Union is dependent on EU institutions such as the European Commission taking its messages on board as well as actions by member states, regional and local authorities. The ESPON Programme (see also ESPON Ireland website) receives specific mention in relation to its central role in providing the evidence base for European territorial development and cohesion policy. The new Territorial Agenda places particular emphasis, however, on actions by member states. In Ireland, the National Spatial Strategy and National Development are the principal policy mechanisms in this regard. As the EU does not have any competence in spatial planning, the Territorial Agenda therefore does not represent a binding spatial plan for the EU in any sense. It does however provide a strategic policy framework and represents a high level European commitment to the balanced regional development and place-based approaches to policy. Based on the experience of previous European spatial policy documents such as the European Spatial Development perspective, the impact of the Territorial Agenda may be significant albeit not always directly visible!

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On Thursday 28th April 2011, the National Institute for Regional and Spatial Analysis (NIRSA) in NUI Maynooth – together with the International Centre for Local and Regional Development (ICLRD) and the Border Regional Authority (BRA) – hosted the second of three practical roundtable discussions. The focus of this event was Land Banking and Housing Development: The (New) Role of the Planning System.

This 1-day roundtable discussion considered the state of housing development and the potential of land banking across the island of Ireland with respect to housing need, unfinished estates, the property market, the planning system and both the Housing and Sustainable Communities Agency (HSCA) and the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA). It examined international experiences of asset disposal and public land development, and explored possibilities and opportunities in the island of Ireland context. It debated the role of local authorities, HSCA, NAMA, housing associations, private developers and other actors in addressing present issues and creating a more sustainable system of development that serves public and private interests. Attended by over 30 people, this event created a space in which key stakeholder agencies were provided with the opportunity to share and learn from each other.

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While running for the train this morning I grabbed a copy of Metro Herald from the vendor outside the station. Unsurprisingly, a picture of Queen Elizabeth adorned the front page, smiling benignly and holding flowers as she met with Trinity students yesterday. The accompanying article described the visit as an “extraordinary occasion”, while also giving more marginal coverage to a range of protests that marked the day. Inside, another article titled “Forget history, we’re here for the fashion” suggested that for many people the dresses worn by Mary McAlese and the Queen would form greater interest than any political or historical concerns. On the letters page, the subject of the Queen’s visit was again raised by a disgruntled reader proclaiming their “boredom” with the “negative comments” surrounding the visit. He suggested that “Now is the time to show that we’ve moved on and don’t hold petty grudges”.

While personally I do not find the protests by Sinn Féin and other republican groups especially constructive, and I certainly do not sympathise with the calls for violence espoused by some dissident groups, taking issue with the long history and the sustained impacts of British rule in Ireland hardly amounts to a “petty grudge”. I bring up this letter not because it is particularly insightful, but rather because it offers an example of what appears to be a relatively commonplace response to the British monarch’s visit; that is, the perspective that Ireland’s colonial past no longer matters, that we have overcome this heritage and that, in the context of contemporary globalisation and cosmopolitanism, suggesting otherwise amounts to an exercise in a futile and dangerous anachronism. This attitude is arguably an outcome of the transformations experienced during the Celtic Tiger period. The rapid changes to Ireland from the early 1990s seem to have brought with them a cultural amnesia, wherein Irish people forgot the nation’s troubled history and position within the political geography of Europe, in favour of an assumed identity as cosmopolitan citizens of a post-political age.

However, the inescapable fact remains that Ireland is a postcolonial nation. And as the post-colonial studies literature shows us, the affects of colonial rule do not suddenly cease upon the moment of emancipation.

Because of its geographical position, on the periphery of Europe but nevertheless within the area political designated as European, Ireland has occupied a particular (in many ways privileged) postcolonial position. Its geographical proximity to Europe and its cultural proximity to the US, its racial composition, and especially its access to the EU, have afforded Ireland opportunities for economic and structural advancement not offered to other former colonies. In many ways, it could be argued that Ireland’s position as a postcolonial nation within Europe mitigated some of the more trenchant outcomes of imperialism. It has not been the target of economically and politically neo-colonialist interventions (at least up until the recent IMF bailout). Postcolonial nations have frequently struggled to build any sort of functional state apparatus or economy. In regard to nations in Africa, for example, Simone (2004, p. 158) suggests that “Even though urban wages increased substantially in the postwar period – at an average of 116 percent increase between 1949 and 1955 – top wage levels for Africans in 1962 fell well below the bottom wage for Europeans. There was just not enough money to support a massive project of resocialization”. Only a small proportion of the populations in modern African nations are employed in the formal economy, while the informal sector has become increasingly important to the survival of many inhabitants. Similarly, the public sector has never recovered from the decimation left in the wake of the colonial powers leaving. While Ireland certainly experienced poverty in the postwar period, it didn’t experience economic and social problems anywhere near the scale of those experienced in Africa or Latin America. Moreover, the Celtic Tiger ‘economic miracle’ saw dramatic increases in GDP, wage levels, and standards of living. This was seen as evidence of Ireland’s escape from its postcolonial status, to be replaced by an identity as a global economic leader. Furthermore, the case of Ireland was used as a vehicle to hide the unequal nature of economic development, by suggesting that the Celtic Tiger offered an example of the benefits of a country opening itself up to the global market, and thus perpetuating a view that these markets offered an equal playing field.

One of the outcomes of the prevalence of free-market ideology over the last number of decades has been a disavowal of the role that history and geography play in contemporary economic, social and political contexts. Some of the popular reactions to the Queen’s visit to Ireland exemplify this perspective. While to an extent the deep ambivalence that the visit represents is being acknowledged and it is being seen as of ‘historic importance’, there is a latent underlying narrative constructing this as a straightforward diplomatic mission. This is achieved in large part by consigning British imperialism in Ireland to the category of ‘history’, something to be read about and studied but which bears little relation to realities as they currently stand. Part of her itinerary thus involves a series of ceremonial functions that symbolically gesture towards a reappraisal of British involvement in Ireland, but do so only opaquely and without formal apology for political violence and injustice that were the outcome of this involvement. Therefore, this history is both remembered and forgotten, remembered only briefly to be forgotten, forgotten for us to remember that as a nation we are now somewhere else, somewhere where this uncomfortable history can be comfortably remembered and forgotten.

But this imagination of the nation elides not only a whole section of Ireland’s past, but crucial ways of understanding its present. As protests organised yesterday by the Socialist Party pointed out, British imperialism did not end at the close of the colonialism era, but is ongoing in countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq in the form of direct involvement in conflict, and in complex neo-colonial relationships with their former colonies. As Edward Said (1994, p.8) suggests, “…direct colonialism has largely ended; imperialism… lingers where it has always been, in a kind of general cultural sphere as well as in specific political, ideological, economic, and social practices”. The project of colonialism and the residual effects of imperialism have formed a colossal global project that continues to shape the world we live in. Ireland is no exception in this regard. Apart from the very obvious problems stemming from the political situation in the north, the Republic of Ireland on account of its colonial status started its independent march towards modernity with an economic and administrational deficit. The apparatus of governance and public administration that had been built up in other European nations were largely missing from the Free State inherited by the Irish people, and the nation has had to contend with a series of rapid transformations from this stunted base. This has had, and continues to have, significant implications for the Irish state’s ability to function. Mac Laughlin (1997, p. 3) argues that the country’s social problems stem from “…the fact that Ireland has become a postmodern society before becoming a modern nation”.

Far from effacing and erasing these challenges, the Celtic Tiger period exemplified their continued applicability. Faced with its postcolonial deficit – the weakness of its political system, the paucity of state-owned and indigenous industry, the high levels of out-migration – the state turned to the unsustainable policy of trying to attract foreign direct investment as a way of growing the economy. While, owing to a range of factors, this strategy was successful for a time, it still bespoke the limited mechanisms of the postcolonial state. These limited mechanisms were also mirrored in the levels of political cronyism and corruption that mired the property boom that was to follow. Of course, Ireland’s current economic crisis cannot be blamed entirely on its status as postcolonial. Much of the current problems faced by the country are very clearly the outcome of incompetence, greed, and under-regulation by Irish banks, politicians, and developers. However, rather than being tangential to these processes, the legacy of colonialism plays a key role in Celtic Tiger Ireland and its catastrophic aftermath. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the IMF/ECB bailout. Here Ireland draws closer to its spiritual neighbours on the postcolony than perhaps ever before. If Morgan Kelly’s apocalyptic warnings are anything to go by, Ireland could already be locked into a system of perpetual debt. In this regard, its status as a postcolonial nation may have increasing significance. So as the Queen visits these shores, rather than drawing divisions between those who have ‘moved on’ and those ‘living in the past’, perhaps we should be asking what this past really means for our present.

Cian O’ Callaghan

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In its research on inter-jurisdictional and cross-border planning, the International Centre for Local and Regional Development (ICLRD) has shown how one of the first entry points to developing cooperation is providing information and shared evidence on common issues such as housing, trade, environment, transport and services. The process of collection, joint analysis, reports and forums can help to build an agenda for action around common interests and challenges. Today, one of the major challenges within the Irish economy and society (North and South) relates to issues within the housing market. ICLRD and the All-Island Research Observatory (AIRO), see here for previous post on AIRO, have developed an interactive mapping and querying tool for housing market indicators combining data from both Northern Ireland and The Republic of Ireland. By facilitating access to comparable statistics, the Island of Ireland Housing Monitoring Tool can be a key step towards addressing common difficulties in the housing sector. This on-line housing atlas is one of three spatial data indicators projects undertaken by AIRO under ICLRD’s Cross-border Spatial Planning and Training Network (CroSPlaN).

Background

During the Celtic Tiger ‘boom’ the Republic of Ireland experienced a phenomenal growth in property construction and house prices. The subsequent ‘bust’ has lead to a radical transformation within the housing market with tumbling house prices, widespread negative equity, almost a total collapse of the construction industry, a legacy of excessive residential zoning and the introduction of the new phenomenon of ‘ghost estates’ to every county in the Republic (“A Haunted Landscape: Housing and Ghost Estates in Post-Celtic Tiger Ireland.” Kitchin et al., 2010).

In Northern Ireland a parallel picture has emerged. Economic buoyancy gave rise to a more dynamic housing market than in previous decades, but without the same dramatic increases in prices as experienced in the Republic of Ireland. The combination of a less dynamic employment base than in the Republic of Ireland, higher rates of long-term unemployment and lower average wages results in a different but equally complex housing market, and has knock-on effects for the planning authorities involved in the provision of housing, in particular the Planning Service and the Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE). Although house prices never rose to the same extent as those in the Republic of Ireland, the economic downturn continues to have a negative impact on affordability and first-time buyer access (NIHE, 2009).

The impact of these new housing market challenges on cross-border planning was explored in detail during the second session of the ICLRD Sixth Annual Conference in January 2011. Speaker presentations and audio files are available for download here.

Island of Ireland Indicators

As Governments and Planning Departments continue to develop strategies for the recovery and future development of Ireland, there is an urgent requirement to establish a baseline of accurate indicators for key sectors such as economy, environment, transport, the social sector and housing amongst others. A variety of datasets and indicators are currently readily available and partially serve the needs of both jurisdictions on an individual basis. However, there is still a pressing need to establish a series of ‘all-island’ indicators to inform and steer the growth of the ‘all-island’ economy.

In an attempt to address this challenge, ICLRD is developing a series of such indicators and currently focussing on the development of the first ‘all-island’ housing indicators set to feed into what will become known as the ‘All-Island Housing Monitoring Tool’. The key focus of these indicators, which it is hoped will also become part of an annual housing report, will be aimed at providing an accurate and comparable evidence base that will be used for collaborative planning for homes and people and for addressing new challenges and agendas within the housing sector.

The current ‘all-island’ indicator set contains data on a variety of themes that describe the characteristics of the housing sector on the island. Indicators are available at the Local Authority ‘District’ level (26) in Northern Ireland and at the Local Authority ‘County/City’ level (34) in the Republic of Ireland. Data for the indicators have been sourced from a number of different organisations in both jurisdictions. The primary source of housing information in Northern Ireland is the Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE). Much of this data is available in annual reports and briefing papers and also available through the Northern Ireland Neighbourhood Information Service (NINIS) website. In the Republic of Ireland, housing data are generally available through two inter-linked organisations: the Housing Department within the Department for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government (DEHLG) and the Central Statistics Office (CSO). To date, the housing indicators project has developed the following comparable ‘all-island’ themes:

Housing Stock 1991 to 2009

Total Housing Stock (1991, 1996, 2002, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009)

% Housing Stock Change (1991 to 2009)

Total Stock per 1000 population (2002, 2006)

Housing Completions

Total Housing Completions (post 2004)

% Change in Total Completions (post 2004)

Total Completions per 1000 population (post 2004)

Housing Vacancy

Vacant Dwellings 1991 to 2006 (Ex. Holiday Homes)

Vacancy Rate 1991 to 2006 (Ex. Holiday Homes)

Vacancy Rate per 1000 population

Housing Tenure

Total Owner Occupied

% Owner Occupied

Total Social Housing

Total Rented Privately

% Rented Privately

Housing Type

Total Conventional Housing

% Conventional Housing

Total Flats and Apartments

% Flats and Apartments

Online Mapping Tool

In order to make the housing indicators as interactive and accessible as possible the AIRO project team developed an on-line mapping tool to display the results. Users of this tool can now view the housing themes, explore patterns, monitor key indicators, present trends and importantly support decision making. Users can also query data and create user defined mapped outputs.

The ‘All-Island Housing Monitoring Tool’ is currently available (beta version) for use on the All-Island Research Observatory (AIRO) website. Users of the site must initially register to gain access to the mapping tools. The site is intended to inform planning, policy and research and therefore registration is open only to members of public bodies.

This housing atlas is one of three spatial data indicators projects undertaken by AIRO under ICLRD’s Cross-border Spatial Planning and Training Network (CroSPlaN). The two other projects, both on-going, include: the establishment of an all-island index of deprivation and an index of Accessibility. It is funded under INTERREG IVA, administered by the Special EU Programmes Body, and is part of a larger initiative managed by the Centre for Cross Border Studies–the Ireland Northern Ireland Cross-Border Cooperation Observatory (‘INICCO’). This three-year programme promotes the development of a cross-border planning network by enhancing and promoting the opportunities that exist for collaboration and addressing identified areas of need.